Continuing from The Space Under the Sink
“And this. is. the. Den!” Greg announced proudly, swinging the door open theatrically, adding a flourish with both of his hands. As if in direct argumentative conflict with his effort, the door swung inwards slowly.
It looked to be the type of door that would creak and protest at any sort of movement, a massive lumbering slab of a door, significantly larger than any other door in the house I had seen. It reminded me of an abandoned bank vault door, a massive monument to the safety of the dollar crafted in tons of steel and shiny chrome, sitting forlornly behind a decorative rope, no longer caring if it served a purpose any longer, for security, economic well-being, or otherwise. This door to the den in Greg’s house was not like said bank vault. This massive wooden door served a purpose, alright, and it was to keep the nosy kids out. A fact that seemed to be lost on my new friend, Greg.
“Won’t your dad be angry at us coming in here?” I asked meekly, my mind still reeling a bit from meeting the nesting Shatterspider Greg had shown me under the bathroom sink.
Greg rolled his eyes and waved it away. “Of course not. I come in here all the time. I know what I am not supposed to touch… and my dad… he says to me all the time, ‘Gregory, if you aren’t exploring, you are not living your best life.'”
“That an imitation?”
Greg chuckled. “Well it would help if I had a deeper voice, puberty is a bitch.”
I laughed. “Puberty hitting you? That bitch passed me right by.”
Which was kind of true, I was definitely a late bloomer. Greg had more than a couple inches on me in height, and I was guessing he was not done growing yet.
“If you thought the Shatterspider was something, come look at this…” Greg waved me into the Den.
As I passed the heavy door, I gave it a shove to test my bank vault theory, and sure enough it felt like the door weighed hundreds of pounds. The thing was out of place in a house sitting in the middle of a cul-de-sac. It was a really nice house, but the door was off. Then again, what house in any cul-de-sac had a glass spider living in it?
Exactly zero.
The Den was sunk into the floor, with steps leading downwards from the heavy door, allowing it to loom over the room like a sileng guardian. It watched me as I descended into the richly appointed leather and wood study, surrounded on all sides by bookcases and display cases, and not a single window to allow light in.
Wait. Not a single window?
“I think this should be called a bank vault, and not the Den, Greg,” I pointed out plainly as I thought about the door.
Greg pulled up short and gave me a sidelong glance. “Why do you say that?”
“The door? The lack of windows?”
Greg did a double take. “No windows? Huh. I hadn’t noticed… now that you mention it…”
“GREGORY?!” A voice came from downstairs.
“Sorry, RJ. That’s my mom.” Greg bounced up the couple stairs and tilted his head towards the stairs. “I am up here, Mom!”
“DID YOU GET YOUR HOMEWORK DONE? WAIT, WHO’S BACKPACK IS THIS?”
“It’s RJ’s! He is up here with me. Can he stay for dinner?” Greg yelled back.
I let me eyes wander the study. A massive desk, a tank of a desk, monolopized the furthest wall from the door, and it was surrounded on all sides by encroaching waves of wooden bookcases. I noticed that the bookcases held more than just books though. There were figurines, small statues, vases, and other bits of decorative things littering the positions between the many horizontal and vertical stacks of books. Likewise, the display cases held more than just things that would be commonly associated with such things. Art, plates, parchment, and other fragile things had books stacked up and around them, sometimes having a journal or a book stacked on the frame, other times, the books serving as impromptu stands for the displays. I noticed right away that even though it seemed chaos reigned supreme, everything seemed to have a place, and everything was in its place. There was no clutter, trash, or dietrus outside of the wastebasket, and there was a suspicious lack of dust that would be commonly found in these sorts of places.
“All set with my mom. You can stay for dinner. Do you need to call your mom?” Greg bounced up next to me.
“Yeah, I will text her later. She is at work,” I replied.
“What does she do?”
“Nurse. Works twelves at a time, so she doesn’t get home late.”
Greg shook his head with a grin. “Damn. No wonder you were up for walking all the way over here after school.”
“Yeah, better than sitting at home playing Xbox.”
“Depends on how much you like playing Xbox. I can’t get my parents to buy me one.”
“Two words: Guilt trip. They work wonders.”
“My dad would literally laugh in my face. He would say, ‘I am not buying my intelligent son a brain-consuming-doohickey. Instead expand your mind!'”
I grinned idiotically. “I really hope that when I meet your dad, it turns out your impression is spot on. But anytime you want to play, feel free to come over. Although my place is tiny compared to your house.”
“Hey man, I don’t own any of this. It is my parent’s. I think I have five bucks to my name. My parents make me pay for my own data plan.”
“Savages!” I teased.
“Right?” Greg tilted his head towards a larger case at one of the end of the study near the monolithic desk. “This is what I wanted to show you.”
As we approached the standing floor case, I noticed it was shaped like a drafting table of sorts, raised off the floor with shapely wooden legs, a glass surface tilted just out of level, as if one could lean against it to write the thoughts of the moment. The glass was, of course, perfectly clean, polished to a high sheen, but the indirect lighting sunk into the top of the bookcases caused no glare.
I rose an eyebrow in confusion. “It’s a map?”
“Look closer.” Greg was smiling ear to ear, as if he was mentally savoring the moment that was about to happen.
I leaned over the glass, careful not to touch the unmarred surface and looked down at the map. It was old, or at least, appeared to be very old. It looked like animal skin of some sort, a thin vellum that was about the size of an old school paper roadmap that I had seen in movies. It filled the case edge to edge, and then I noticed there were no edges.
The map moved in it’s case. It literally shifted downwards and to the left. I thought the light was tricking my eyes, but I kept my eyes on the roads, and cities, and connecting lines and dots… and sure enough, the entire map was moving at the same pace downwards. Except a single black dot in the middle. It was staying still. Or, the map was moving in relation to it, so perhaps the dot was moving, and the map was adjusting in real time.
“Is this Google Maps on a fancy LED screen or something?” I asked stupidly.
“Ha! Great one, RJ.” Greg shook his head, laughing. “Google maps… I swear. This is my dad’s Evarimap. That dot right there is my dad.”
“What the hell is an evermap?”
“The way my dad explains it, Evari are these massive creatures that span multiple realities. You know that Shatterspider’s web was branching and crisscrossing places, right?”
I still kinda did not believe it myself, but I nodded an affirmative anyway.
“Same thing, I think. Evari are like whales, they travel in pods and everything. Their skin takes on their ability to traverse that space, and if you treat it right, you can make one of these. My dad has a necklace with a bone of the Evari around his neck, so I can always see where he is at.”
“Where is he now?” I pointed at the glass. “Rusktown? Denbe? I don’t recognize any of those towns. Wait, how would a map even know what a town is called?”
“Heh, he is really moving isn’t he? Must be traveling fast, and… getting faster. Headed home probably, things should shift suddenly in a second.”
The map, without any warning or transition, suddenly showed their hometown. Including Greg’s cul-de-sac with the black dot at the front door.
“I’m home!” A voice called out below.
“Hello, dear,” the faint sound of Greg’s mom’s voice.
“Hello, love.”
“Your son has a friend over. You should go introduce yourself. I am fairly certain that your son already showed him our unwanted guest in the bathroom.”
“Oh, dear. Yes, of course. Did you catch his name?”
Greg smiled widely and yelled, “His name is RJ and he is up here, Pops!”
“This house is far too small,” Greg’s dad commented dryly.
There was the sound of a clomp, clomp, clomp of oversized feet climbing the stairs, and then a man that did not meet any sort of expectation stepped through the door. Greg was tall. He was handsome. All the girls talked about how dreamy he was behind his back, not paying attention to nerds like me that could overhear their conversation. And to my eye, the man that appeared in the doorway should have been my dad, and not Greg’s. He was tall, sure, but it was the lanky sort of tall, like a stork on stilts that had not figured out how to dress like a human being. His hair was wildly out of place, as if he was a cross between a mad scientist and broomstick, errant bits of hay that resembled hair sprouted every which way.
“Ah, you must be our guest! RJ, is it?” He exclaimed with his arms wide. He stepped down into the Den lightly, as if dancing down the stairs. He tossed his overcoat and messenger bag into an empty overstuffed leather chair near the desk, turned with a flourish and presented his hand to me as if I was just another adult. “My name is Dr. Simon Bauchant… pleasure.”
“Dr? Laying it on thick today, Pops,” Greg chuckled lightly, teasing his father with a raised eyebrow.
Dr. Bauchant looked mildly offended by his son, but took it in stride. “Well, I am. I did not go to all those years of school just to introduce myself as mister! I mean, honestly RJ, the only thing that degree got me was a title.”
A tsking noise can from the door. “And a wife, goof.”
Greg’s mom came into the room carrying a trio of glasses of something yellow and fizzy. She handed me one with a wink.
And now I knew where Greg got his good looks genes. It was not from his father. It was undeniably from his insanely gorgeous mother. She was a dark haired woman, with a facial symmetry that could have been carved into marble for a couple millennia worth of Greeks to admire in the Parthenon.
“I am Greg’s mother, of course, Mrs. Bauchant. And this is the house special, my own sparkling lemonade.”
“Mom grows the lemons herself,” Greg said, taking a glass from his mother. “She is a Horticulturist.”
I had no idea what that was, but didn’t get a chance to ask.
“So, RJ. What brings you to our little house?” Simon grinned, taking the last glass from his wife, pecking her on the cheek. He leaned against his desk watching his wife walk out of the room, the curve of a small grin resting lightly at the corner of his mouth.
“Greg, huh, invited me over. Just playing some basketball in the driveway.” I sort of felt guilty all of a sudden, like I was intruding. Greg’s dad was looking me over as if I was something requiring study.
“And then my son thought it would be prudent to introduce you to our guest in the bathroom? Greg, I told you to leave that poor thing alone. She is trying to hibernate.”
Greg looked slightly abashed, but it faded quickly. “Ah, come on Dad. How often do I get to show off stuff like that to anybody?”
Dr. Bauchant rolled his eyes. “All the time, given the chance. You should be careful with such things. Shatterspider or not. What if I had a baby Tsuchigumo follow me home? Would you show your friends that?”
“Of course not. And I would think that you would not let one nest under the bathroom sink!” Greg said, apalled.
I had no idea what a Tsuchigumo was, but it sounded Japanese.
Greg continued. “But that doesn’t matter, because it was safe. Plus, RJ is cool. You can trust him.”
Dr. Bauchant looked at me closely, his dark blue eyes narrowing carefully, as if he was measuring me against a standard that did not exist for anyone but him. “Yes, yes, I can see that. Good character, it seems.”
I put my hands up and played my best incredulous face. “Hey, I could be evil or something and not know it yet.”
Dr. Bauchant laughed heartily. “I would know it. I specialize in such things, my young friend. One of my most sought after talents, one could say.”
“Cool,” I replied dumbly. Because what else would a teenager say to something so cryptic?
“Cool.” Dr. Bauchant grinned. “Now, RJ, I hear you will be joining us for dinner. Is that ok with your mother or father?”
“Yeah, just my mom. I texted her.”
“Alright. Here… text her this as well.” Greg’s dad scribbled a number on a piece of paper and handed it over. “That is my phone, in case she needs to reach out directly.”
“Sure.”
“You will need to do it outside the Den. Your smartphone won’t work in here,” Greg said.
“The nature of my work… is not electronics-friendly, one could say. Apologies,” Dr. Bauchant added.
“No worries. What do you do, Dr. Bauchant?”
“A humble researcher, nothing more.”
Greg snickered.
His dad looked offended. “It’s true, son.”
“Really? Come on, pops.”
“Alright, I am a bit of an adventurer, wholly on the side, of course, of, ah… my main pursuit.”
Greg rolled his eyes. “Since he won’t say it outright, my dad is a Master Ambulist, and serves on the Society’s Board.”
My face had a blank look that only a clean piece of paper could attain. “Ambulist?”
“The study and related sciences of Walking,” Dr. Bauchant commented. “Something of which I teach at the Society of Ambulists. It is, uh, like a college of sorts.”
“You teach walking?” I felt dumb, like I was missing something obvious. “Like for people that forgot how?”
“The First Law: The best method to achieve understanding is through experience… want to go for a Walk, boys?”
“Ooooh, let’s go to The Waterfall of Proxima’s Folly. Or the Vaults of Tranquility… or…” Greg enthusiastically jumped in, his excitement making him bounce on his heels.
Dr. Bauchant held up his hand to calm his son. “How about the Red Plains of Defu?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah! I forgot about Defu, I wonder if Amara will be around? Let’s go! I haven’t seen Amara for-ever!” Greg’s eyes were wide with excitement, and then he looked momentarily embarrassed. “Sorry, RJ. I have never been able to bring a friend. This is legit EXCITING!”
“Uh, I might be the weird kid, but at this point, I am just trying to understand what you two are talking about,” I admitted.
Not only did I feel lost, I was pretty sure I was in a different universe than the rest of the room. What had happened? I woke up to a typical day… got out of bed, brushed my teeth, got dressed, grabbed a breakfast bar with my backpack, rode the bus to school… went through the motions, blah, blah, blah. Went to a friend’s house, and then shit got weird. A spider that wove webs out of other realities, a map made of skin that seemed to update itself, and now Greg listing off places that sounded normal at first, then as you thought about it, sounded more and more like a bad Doctor Who episode. Not my typical day, then. Good job, RJ-from-this-morning, you effed up your estimation of your day. I looked down at my phone, looking for some normalcy, but all I saw was a familiar screen and with zero bars.
“RJ, son, are you alright?” Dr. Bauchant laid a hand on my shoulder comfortingly.
“I think so. It’s been a weird day.”
“Dude! Let’s go!” Greg’s face looked like it was about to burst with excitement. “This is so awesome!”
The good doctor waved his son away impatiently. “Ignore my son for a second, RJ… do you need to go? If you feel like this is too outside of what you are comfortable with, I will be glad to take you home.”
“No, no. I’m fine. I’m fine. It’s all fine.” Nonchalant, shrugging my shoulders. I swallowed heavily. “Let’s do it.”
“Good sport.” Dr. Bauchant smiled. “Alright boys, grab a hand.”
I took Dr. Bauchant’s offered hand, Greg took the other, carrying the biggest, goofiest grin one could imagine. It was like he was getting a Christmas present.
“And everyone take a step forward on three. One, two…”
I pushed my foot forward into space. Literally. One moment, it was nestled in the rug in Dr. Bauchant’s office, the next it was hovering over a field of stars. Galaxies wheeled around us, and it took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t the field of stars that were rotating, it was us. As if we were walking along the inside of a curved hallway, one moment taking a step over glass holding back an aquarium of stars all around us. Then my foot touched the earth again.
I looked at the toe of my shoe in shock,as the red dirt underneath the edge of my white sneaker was brilliantly illuminated by the wash of sunlight. I whipped my eyes skyward, expecting to see the stars wheeling overhead, but found nothing but a teal blue sky, horizon to horizon, framing the dual jewels of two slivers of moons hanging far above.
“The… stars…” I stammered.
“The stars?” Greg laughed. “It’s daytime here, RJ! Amara’s farm is this way, let’s go!”
Dr. Bauchant caught my eye as Greg started running towards a nearby hill. “You saw the Universe Engine as we transitioned?”
“Uh, sorry, it was dumb,” I replied quickly, feeling embarrassed.
“Don’t be, RJ. Tell me what you saw,” Dr. Bauchant encouraged.
“As I lifted my foot, it crossed over stars? And above me there were galaxies spinning, and then… my foot touched down, and everything was gone,” I rushed as the words lept from my mouth. “Am I going crazy?”
“Not at all. I see them as well. Greg unfortunately does not. He is a bit… more passive with his observation. Congratulations on your first Walk, RJ.”
“How did I see it all?” My eyes welled with tears unexpectedly, and I felt something stirring within my very core. A yearning. A call. “How will I ever see it again?”
“Now, now, young man. Keep your chin up,” Dr. Bauchant smiled kindly. “You have plenty of time. To see everything. Anything. You just have to keep your heart and your mind open to such things. But for now… let’s go ride a Korfin across the desert morning.”
“A Korfin?” I asked, sniffing as I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand.
“Ms. Amara has some of the fastest ever bred. They can reach ninety miles an hour on a straight here in the Defu. Come, come.” Dr. Bauchant laid his hand on my shoulder and turned me towards the hill that Greg had disappeared over. “A glorious morning, don’t you think?”
I took in the vista around me, a nearly flat desert plain, covered in bright red, large humps of hills rising slowly, far apart, as if a pod of whales would breach at some point from beneath the desert floor. Off in the distance, yellow mountains rose craggily into the sky, their summits obscured by the mists of a far off storm. The sun was warm, but not hot, and all around us, small flowers grew in clumps, making the air smell like cinnamon and aged wood.
It was a glorious morning indeed. Even if I had no idea where the hell I was.
That would be my next question… eventually.